Community Development and Applied Economics

BUILDING INCLUSION

CDAE Alumna Receives Prestigious Fellowship for New Americans

Estefania Puerta, CID '10, has received $90,000 from The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, the premier graduate school fellowship for immigrants and children of immigrants in the US. Read more...

Climate Change Could Outpace EPA Lake Champlain Protections

CDAE Professors Asim Zia and Koliba publish powerful new model indicating that current pollution standards may be inadequate to ward off worsening algae blooms in Lake Champlain. Read More

Serving the Public Interest

Morrill Hall is the home to CDAE and is named after Justin Morrill, the Vermont senator who founded the land grant college system to serve the public interest.

Community Partners

The Department of Community Development and Applied Economics maintains long-standing relationships with community partners in Vermont and around the world. CDAE uses economic, social, and environmental principles to identify community needs, analyze problems, and advance sustainable solutions in partnership with organizations and communities. We understand that strong communities are founded on socially responsible entrepreneurs, policy leaders and public communicators working together.

How will we change the world?

First step - prepare ourselves. CDAE offers hands-on, transdisciplinary learning and experience that empowers graduates to make professional contributions to their communities and the world.

CDAE supports sustainable local and international community development through interdisciplinary research, education, and outreach that serves the public interest.

Applied and Service Learning

Building and developing community connections requires connecting with your community.

CDAE is a unique and innovative department. We were doing Service Learning before it was called "Service Learning" because we found it to be an effective, rewarding way to teach and learn. CDAE works with countless local, regional, and international partners to give students experience in long-term project development, planning, and execution as well as the background, context, and lenses through which to view their work. It is our belief that pairing traditional classroom learning with applied experience in the field makes for the best graduates, and, most importantly, global citizens.

Recent Headlines

CDAE faculty members are experts in their field, experienced in their practice, and prolific in their contributions to academic literature. They engage students with applied learning, relevant worldly problem-solving, and theory to back it all up.

Our department integrates action with learning. We house courses in media literacy, news writing, and we underwrite UVM's student-run free-form radio station, WRUV FM Burlington. Tate Kamish, above, Public Communication minor DJs at the station adding skills to her experience in media and communication.

Cabot Community Marketing Challenge–a class taught by Kate Finley-Woodruff–works with local organizations to create and execute a marketing plan. This past year the class helped COTS (the Committee on Temporary Shelter, in Burlington) raise awareness about homelessness in Vermont.